Amherst Housing Blog

Welcome to the Amherst Housing Blog! Here you can follow my search for adequate housing, learn a few tricks, avoid scams, get the low down on the rental scene, and post your own stories. This is meant to help all of you through the process and to keep these often wealthy, often unscrupulous landlords in check!! See sister Amherst Life Blog - http://amherstlife.blogspot.com/

Saturday, July 08, 2006

Friday, July 07, 2006

I just saw an ad for a studio for $1,000/month in Hadley. What bothered me most, however, was the concluding sentence of the description (see UMass housing page):

"It may be a little pricy but its worth it for safty and comfort."

Don't buy the George W. rhetoric (and spelling mastery, ironically): Hadley is a serious farm town and the UMass area is safe. You don't need to spend that kind of $$ to avoid getting mugged, OK? This is Moooo-town: If you want to fear something, check out the fact that some local folks still go out cow-tipping for fun...

Monday, July 03, 2006

If you didn't already know, the big property management agencies in Amherst (i.e. Kamins) require that you earn the total amount of the monthly rent in one week!! If you don't, you need to have a co-signer based in the U.S.

Sunday, July 02, 2006

My favorite housing deal: pay $600/mth for a room in a family's house, share a bathroom and kitchen with 5 people, use a space heater because the landlord is too cheap to install real heat, and, because you are getting such a great deal (?), please spend quality time with the kids to keep their moral high during the parent's messy divorce. Yes!

A tip from a fellow housing hunter: all information that you enter on the UMass off-campus housing page (once there, click on "search rental listings") affects the search results. I know this sounds like an obvious, unnecessary observation, but if you are looking for something for September 1st, say, and enter that date as the 'start date', you are often not able to see the 'flexible' move in dates, the 'August' move in dates, etc. Those landlords that want to rent their apartments in June, July, and August often cannot (most people head out of town after school), so that housing option may be available even as late as September 1st. Also, you don't have to put anything in for the 'start date' or 'end date' (that might be the best way to search because that way the 'flexible' start/end dates do appear). Suerte!

Loners, hermits, fellow only-children syndromees, and other studio seekers, don't fall victim to the linguistic transformation that has taken root in the 5-college area. Please observe the contrast:

Widely understood definition of a "Studio" apartment: A type of apartment/living quarters in which one has his/her own private entrance with door and lock/key, private kitchen, private bathroom, at least one window (we hope), and all of this within the confines of your own, self-contained, private living space that is large enough to at least put a twin bed in and walk around it (again, we hope).

In Amherst, this definition has been twisted, reformed, and adapted to fit the needs of a stingy (and may I mention, often wealthy) landlord population that has no problem charging NYC prices in rural, no-(wo)mans-land, Amherst, MA.

Check out the following examples of "studios":"Studio apartment in a five bedroom home. Shared bathroom, shared kitchen, share all living expenses. 560/mth." --> This is not a studio, pal.

Amherst Housing Blog

Welcome to the Amherst Housing Blog! Here you can follow my search for adequate housing, learn a few tricks, avoid scams, get the low down on the rental scene, and post your own stories. This is meant to help all of you through the process and to keep these often wealthy, often unscrupulous landlords in check!! See sister Amherst Life Blog - http://amherstlife.blogspot.com/